The Bridge · PreventionPreventionClinical longevity medicine at Chi Longevity and the NUS Academy — catching decline early and bringing geromedicine into real healthcare.
Level 2 · UpgradesBiohacking UpgradesEvidence-based, tech-enabled protocols that take you from normal to optimal.
Level 1 · BasicsLongevity BasicsTest yourself, know your numbers — "normal is not enough; we're going from normal to optimal."
Live Beyond · A Great Mind on the Quest
Andrea Maier
Professor of Medicine, National University of Singapore Founder of Chi Longevity · President, Healthy Longevity Medicine Society
Prof. Andrea B. Maier is one of the world's leading healthy-longevity physicians. She is the Oon Chiew Seng Professor in Medicine at the NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity (which she co-founded in 2023) and Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity — and Professor of Gerontology at VU Amsterdam.
In 2022 she founded Chi Longevity, Asia's first evidence-based, tech-enabled precision-geromedicine clinic. She is also the founding President of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society, working to make "health and longevity medicine" a recognised specialty — optimising healthspan by targeting the aging process itself, not just screening for disease.
For eighteen years she advocated for preventative longevity clinics — first in Amsterdam, then Melbourne — and kept meeting systems that weren't ready. Singapore was. There she built the whole framework: diagnostics, randomised trials, public and private clinics, education, and policy work with the UN and WHO.
Colleagues once called her provocative for saying aging is a disease. Her reply: "Of course it is — because we understand it, so let's treat it." Her mission isn't radical life extension for a few; it's optimisation for the many. "Normal is not enough," she says. "We're going from normal to optimal."
NUS Academy · ProfessorChi Longevity · FounderHLM Society · Founding PresidentUN · WHO advisor
Chi Longevity · Singapore
Where we met
From Dublin to her clinic in Singapore
We first met Andrea at the Longevity Summit in Dublin — where this self-described "provocative" clinician-scientist told us why aging is a disease we can treat. Our paths kept crossing across the longevity world: Singapore (her NUS Academy and the Chi Longevity clinic), Copenhagen (ARDD), Shanghai (TimePie), and Boston (the Biomarkers of Aging Conference at Harvard).
Longevity Summit Dublin
Ireland · 2023
Where we first met — a candid interview on treating aging, going from normal to optimal, and democratising longevity medicine.
Singapore
NUS Academy · Chi Longevity
Her home base — the NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity and Chi Longevity, Asia's first evidence-based geromedicine clinic.
Around the World
Copenhagen · Shanghai · Boston
ARDD in Copenhagen, the TimePie summit in Shanghai, and the Biomarkers of Aging Conference at Harvard.
"This is the most exciting time in longevity — and now there's the acceleration."
— Andrea Maier, in Dublin
On the quest
Moments with Andrea
The interviewLongevity Summit Dublin — treating aging, normal to optimalProvocative & preciseOn why aging is a disease, DublinBiomarkers of AgingThe conference at Harvard · BostonTwo generationsAndrea & Aleksander, DublinAlek in the chairAleksander interviewing Andrea — NUS, SingaporeOn the stage togetherBiomarkers of Aging · Harvard, 2024SpeakingHarvard, 2024
In her words
On aging, treated
"Aging is a disease — because we understand it. So let's treat it."
Andrea Maier · Longevity Summit Dublin
Normal is not enough. We're going from normal to optimal — tracking your body over time to change the aging trajectory.
Andrea Maier
Twenty years ago it was about don't die. Now it's about healthspan — a strategy to be integrated into public health.
Andrea Maier
My mission is optimisation for the mass market — feasible for the broader population, with a good return on investment.
Andrea Maier
It's now or never.
Andrea Maier
In his own words
Straight from the interview
Pulled from our conversation with Andrea at the Longevity Summit in Dublin — her philosophy, her clinical approach, and her wish for our journey.
Andrea's view on longevity
Aging is a disease we can treat. Her north star isn't living forever — it's optimising health at scale, moving people from normal to optimal.
"Why is normal just enough? Nobody asks: is your body optimal? That's what we have to achieve."
Dublin · 2023
How Andrea does longevity
Evidence-based, tech-enabled medicine — Chi Longevity plus NUS trials — so whatever works reaches people quickly, and transparently.
"Everything we do you can find in the articles. We say why we do things — and why we don't."
Chi Longevity
Her wish for our journey
Test yourself, come back recharged — and never lose the joy, because that's where purpose lives.
"I'd love you to come back ten years younger — but especially mentally recharged. Without joy… there needs to be purpose in life."
The video interview is coming. Recorded interviews go live after the launch of the film & series Live Beyond.
Selected passages from our filmed conversation with Prof. Andrea Maier — at the Longevity Summit in Dublin.
On calling aging a disease
Marek Piotrowski"Do you feel more crazy, or more down to earth?"
Andrea Maier"If you put me in the medical system, I'm very innovative — people perceive me as crazy. Why should we change healthcare? Why call aging a disease? I'm very provocative to say: yes, of course aging is a disease, because we understand it — so let's treat it. But I don't just shout that we'll live 100 more years. I advocate, with science, for a framework that can be implemented into normal healthcare systems, because that's how we democratise health."
On building it in Singapore
Andrea Maier"I started in Amsterdam 18 years ago advocating for a preventative clinic — a no-go, nobody understood me. Then Australia — the system wasn't ready. Now I'm in Singapore, where the system is ready. If longevity medicine wants to succeed, we have to start where health ministers and governments understand it. We built the entire framework: diagnostics, randomised-trial centres, public and private clinics, education, partnerships. It's now or never."
On normal versus optimal
Andrea Maier"Twenty years ago it was about don't die — about lifespan. Now it's about healthspan, and a strategy to be integrated into public health. Health and longevity medicine is optimising health and healthspan, targeting the aging process across the lifespan. Why is normal just enough? Nobody asks: is your body optimal? Most of the time, if a blood test isn't bold and red, we say it's fine. We're going from normal to optimal — tracking the body over time to change the aging trajectory."
On radical life extension
Marek Piotrowski"I'm a huge fan of radical life extension. What's your take?"
Andrea Maier"That's yours — it's not my mission. Mine is to optimise health to be longer on Earth in a much better physical state: optimisation, with a good return on investment, feasible for the broader population. Less for the individual, much more for the mass market. But if genetic therapies become proven and available for the masses — let's go for it. Life is too short to die. I studied medicine to prevent people from dying; we just have to fight for the individual much earlier in life."
On testing yourself
Andrea Maier"Preventative medicine diagnoses disease early. Longevity medicine antagonises the aging process itself — tracking you with blood markers, the microbiome, the epigenome, to see how you're progressing and define what's optimal. You want to be the best in class, and the same holds for your body. Know how your engine works — and then you can tweak it. But do it with someone who can interpret the data well."
On the next generation
Andrea Maier"We need youngsters who can take much more risk. That's why we started the Academy for Healthy Longevity — a talent incubator, and I'd love to bring it to high schools. I'd even go further: how do we treat people who want to become parents, to give their unborn children the best epigenetic makeup and environment? It's the next generation for me. And it's not just engineering our mitochondria — we need social scientists, anthropologists, people observing how we actually live."
Her wish for our journey
Aleksander Piotrowski"What would you wish us for our longevity quest?"
Andrea Maier"I'd love you to test yourself now, and come back ten years younger — but especially feeling mentally recharged. That's most important, and enjoy it. Without joy you can have a beautiful body, beautiful genes, a very low epigenetic age — but you have to enjoy the interaction with people, because there needs to be purpose in life."
More passages from the full interview will be published here.
Continue the quest
More minds on the quest
Andrea Maier explores Prevention — the Bridge on the Longevity Map — here are others on the same frontier, and the full cast of 100+.
